


No treat without tricks

by Melarissa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adultery, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Not Hunters, Character Death, Fluff and Angst, Halloween, Human!Castiel - Freeform, Multi, good ending, life after death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8319220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melarissa/pseuds/Melarissa
Summary: It's Halloween and Dean visits the family of his brother Sam. With his nephew he goes for trick-or-treating and meets Castiel...





	

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Без напастей сластей не бывает](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2541905) by [Melarissa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melarissa/pseuds/Melarissa). 



> I translated this fic myself from Russian, but without the help of my wonderful beta Terence Fletcher it would rest in my dream.  
> All faults are mine.  
> Terence, thank you!

The Winchester family was about to sit down for a dinner, when the doorbell rang. With a tired sigh Sam threw his napkin on his still empty plate and went to the door.

“Hey bro, would you let a beaten traveler to have a drink?”

His elder brother was the last one whom Sam had expected to see on his doorstep.

“Dean? Come in.”

He stepped aside letting Dean trough and closed the door gently. Dean jibbed in the entry hall not daring to step onto the light carpet with his dirty boots. Sam clapped him on a shoulder and lead to the dining room.

“Look who’s here!”, he declared stepping in with Dean on his side.

Jess turned around. Sam caught a short expression of distaste on her face, but she collected herself quickly and presented a bright smile. Too bright to be sincere.

“Dean! A drive-by visit?” she asked rising up and without waiting for the answer went to the kitchen for one more plate.

Sam shook his head behind Dean’s back, but Jess shrugged indifferently not caring to hide from Dean this mute conversation with her husband. He didn’t notice though, as the hurricane named Jamie pounced on him.

“Uncle Dean!” 

Too tall for his six years, the boy hung on Dean’s neck, swinging his legs. Dean gripped him and tossed him up two or three times. The kid shrieked. Jess, already back from the kitchen, was about to interrupt them, but Dean put Jamie on the floor himself.

“Go to your place.” Dean slapped him on the ass and tugged his old leather jacket off. “Your peas will get cold.”

“I hate it!” Jamie whispered loudly and sauntered lazily to his chair. 

“I adore it for my part”! Dean sat right opposite him and put a little pile of peas on his plate. “This is a really musical meal. Long ago, when your dad and I…”

“Dean!” Sam said with his eyes narrowed. “Don’t!”

“All right, I won’t”, Dean was unexpectedly compliant. “So, what's up? Busy as a bee?”

“It’s good and will be better”, replied Sam. “Bzzz!”

“I’m glad”, Dean dropped as mashed potatoes with peas and a good bite of steak were already in his mouth. “It’s really gorgeous, Jess.”

Jess deliberately averted her eyes to avoid seeing partly chewed food in his mouth. 

“Don’t chomp, Jamie!” she said rigidly to her son.

“I don’t, mom!”, he argued.

“And don’t speak with a mouthful!” She rose her voice.

A telephone call cut the imminent skirmish off. 

“Who can it be? Your turn.” It seemed there was something acid in Sam’s voice that Dean couldn’t understand. Jess stood up and went back to the kitchen again. Her voice was loud enough to be heard in the dining room. She came back a minute later.

“It was Julie. Curtis is sick and he won’t go tomorrow.”

Jamie’s face got anxious. Dean noticed Sam’s sudden tension. The mood at the table clearly went down.

*

“Do you wanna go with me? Just for a couple of days, Sam.”

Dean buzzed his beer. They sat on Sam’s porch. Despite the end of October the weather was warm and dry in Palo Alto. The street was empty. Porches and lawns of respectable single-family houses were decorated with pumpkins, artificial cobweb and another Halloween stuff. Sam kept his head turned away. 

“I can’t,” he said.

“Thirty years, Sam,” Dean said almost plaintively.

“I understand, but I can’t. Not yet. Not this year, Dean. All runs well, but I can’t just forget my job and leave for a few days. I’m a part of a system, and…”

“The bees, I know.” Dean gave a nod. “I see. Well, I’ll drive on tomorrow then.”

Sam nodded apologetically and hurried to give his brother another bottle of beer.

“Where did you park?” He asked in attempt to switch topics. “How about your Baby? Runs all right?”

“She’s the best,” Dean smiled. “She’ll survive us all, and Jamie will pin for girls with her. I’ve parked her in the suburbs for the night.”

Sam sniffed. He found amusing Dean’s habit to speak about his car as of a living creature. For many years, he himself drove impersonal and expensive cars, mostly German. Respectable and safe. It was getting colder. Hoarse cries of cicadas sounded around like an opera performance.

“Would you like to go inside? I have to leave early tomorrow,” Sam said with an excusing glance.

Dean rose up without a word and took his beer.

*

The talks sounded vaguely, as a displeased stammer. Dean couldn’t understand words, but he distinguished tones very well. He experienced family quarrels often enough for recognize them. He carefully opened the door of the guest room and looked out into the hallway.

The long hallway was enlightened by dim lamps. The door to Jamie’s room stood half open. Dean could see pictures on the walls and plastic planes or other stuff suspended from the ceiling; he knew nothing about it, just saw in the movies. This whole house - big, clean, well furnished - made him feel a stranger. He couldn’t believe Sam liked it. But he remembered how proud Sam had been showing him his newly bought house, empty and uninhabited then. He should accept that Sam loved his home. If these voices wouldn’t be so…

Barefoot, Dean walked silently down the hallway to the stairs where he could hear more. In the dark corner, Jamie was sitting on the floor, listening with his face pressed between the newels. Dean thought of a convict behind prison bars hoping for someone to come and pay the bail, but hours were passing and nobody came. Crappy feeling, Dean knew that for sure. He sat down nearby his nephew, and his knee, injured in one of the street fights many years ago, clicked. Jamie shuddered and turned around, and Dean put his finger to his lips. The boy nodded and turned his head back.

“He’s your son, Sam,” Jess sounded shrill. “Do you have doubts? You can always make a test!”

“I don’t have doubts, Jess, don’t talk crap!” Sam’s reply sounded tired and irritated. “But I have a meeting tomorrow. I can’t skip it, it’s a very important case and a very important client. I can’t leave that behind and go for trick-or-treating with Jamie!”

“So it’s me who can?” Jess said. “Isn’t my job important? Should I cancel my business dinner, jeopardize my career because my husband can’t take care of our son? Why it’s always me?”

“Don’t juggle with words!”

“When you were dating your cow-leech, why didn’t you take Jamie with you? I thought she loved children!”

“Jess, for god’s sake! This affair with Amelia was a mistake and I told you a million times…”

“You only can shoot the breeze, Sam Winchester! I supposed it’s your brother who is a womanizer…”

“Don’t bring Dean into that! He can hear us perhaps…”

“I don’t care!” Jess slammed her hand on a surface. “He limped up here, ate a half of the dinner not made for him…”

“Come on.” Dean stood up, shifting his wealth on his healthy leg, and lifted Jamie up. “I think these talks are not for six year old superheroes.”

 

Jamie grabbed Dean’s neck and buried his face in Dean’s shoulder. His hair was as long and soft as Sam’s at the same age. All in all he was very much like Sam, but well-cared and clean. Dean carried him into his room and brought to his bed. He pulled a blanket to his nose. Then he sat on the bed’s edge. 

“Do they make it often?” he asked softly.

“Almost every day.” Jamie sighed. “Because of me, because of an empty milk bottle, because of a newspaper, or the grass that dad didn’t mow, or mom came back late… I was so happy I’d go to trick-or-treating with Curtis and his mom! She’s funny and she makes us chocomilk.”

“Chocomilk is cool,” Dean replied earnestly. “But don’t you have someone else to come with?”

Jamie sighed again.

“I have only one friend,” he said softly. “With others… it isn’t so good.”

 _The same as Sam was,_ Dean thought.

“Can you come with me, uncle Dean?” Jamie looked at Dean with big begging eyes. “Please! Stay one day more! Mommy isn’t angry about you, she said it, but I know, she isn’t! She’s nice.”

“Of course she’s nice”, Dean nodded and ruffled Jamie’s hair. “I know, she isn’t angry about me. I...”

“Please!” Jamie clenched his blanket in his fists and pressed it to his chest. “I have a really cool costume. I’ll be Anakin Skywalker, Curtis should've been Luke, and his mom Princess Leia. You could be Obi-Van Kenobi…

“Rather a Darth Vader.” Dean covered the lower part of his face with his hand and began to breath loud and strained. “I’m your father, Luke,” he said with a husky voice.

Jamie laughed swinging his legs in the air. And just then Jess came into the room.

“What’s the night gathering? Dean, he has school tomorrow!”

Crimson spots on her face showed she wasn’t recovered from the requell with Sam. Dean took his hand back and made a guilty face.

“I… heard Jamie was awake,” he muttered.

“Mom, uncle Dean will stay one more day and will come with me to trick-and-treating! Isn’t that cool?” Jamie said loud at the same time.

Jess looked surprised.

“I thought you are busy and have to leave tomorrow.” She turned to her brother in law.

“One day more or one day less doesn’t matter, so, if you don’t mind… I can stay in a motel.”

“Oh no, stay here, of course.” Jess relaxed visibly. “It’s so nice of you, we’ve planned it long time ago that Jamie would be with Curtis and his mother, and now with such a thing… But the school isn’t cancelled. Jamie, go under the blanket!”

The boy ducked instantly to his place and stretched still with eyes tight shut. Then he whispered loudly then,“You could be a Jabba the Hutt, but making such a costume will take too much time.”

“You can talk tomorrow,” Jess interrupted. “Uncle Dean is tired, and you have to sleep.”

Letting Dean ahead, Jess closed the door.

“Good night, Dean.”

“Night.”

Dean headed towards the guest room, Jess - towards the bedroom. Dean turned around furtively as he heard her opening the door. Sam wasn’t in, the bed was pristine. He shook his head, but chose not to intervene. Anyway he was the crappiest family therapist ever. 

*

“Trick or treat!”

A fat girl dressed in pink dress and wearing a pink witch hat on her head pushed Jamie away as she ran to the opening door of someone’s house. Jamie adjusted his laser sword tucked behind the belt and sighed.

“Hey, chop her to bits, jedi knight!” Dean encouraged him.

“Nope, it’s Delilah, she’s in my class,” Jamie replied somberly. “She’s angry because her parents divorced. Dad said that.”

“Hum, he knows better,” Dean said without meaning something special, but he almost stumbled seeing the fear on boy’s face. “Hey, buddy, never mind. It’s just a saying.”

“I don’t want my parents to get divorced.” Jamie took Dean’s hand trustfully and walked on with his head bent low. “They quarrel. About me.”

“Not about you, Jamie!”

Dean’s heart was heavy. He had no idea how to explain to a six year old kid that his parents quarrel not because of him.

“Sometimes adults can’t agree, but children have nothing to do with it.”

Jamie nodded, but he seemed not convicted. “Miss Martin said so too.”

“Who is she?” Dean asked wondering if this miss Martin could be Amelia mentioned a day before.

“My teacher. One day mom hadn’t picked me on time. Dad neither. So I talked to her.”

“That’s good.”

Talking was good. For Jamie it was way better to talk that to keep all his feelings inside. They walked to the end of the street. Right on the corner there was an old neglected house with an overgrown grass lawn. A dim light came through the mesh and lace curtains on the front door. The house wasn’t decorated, not even a pumpkin with a candle stood on the porch.

“Should we knock?” Dean proposed.

Jamie shrugged indifferently and stepped onto a cracked concrete path heading towards the porch. Although it wasn’t cold, Dean put his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket and followed him. Jamie had already rang the doorbell. 

“Tricks or treat,” he whispered when the door opened. Dean didn’t see the face of the man by the door, but judging by the slender silhouette he was young. 

“Hello.” The voice was pleasant and a little husky. “Sorry, I didn’t expect... I have nothing.”

“It’s okay,” soughed Jamie. “Thank you.”

He almost turned around, but Dean was already sick of people kicking his nephew like a soccer ball in the last twenty-four hours, and he sprang over two stairs and kicked the door open. The man staggered back pressing a fist to his chest.

Dean was right. The man was young, his age or a couple of years older, tall, slim and slightly stooped. He was wearing black slacks and a white shirt with unbuttoned collar. His hair was dark and kind of messy. He was probably the type waking up a maternal instinct at women and raising desire to lick the fingers and smooth untidy curls.

“Hey, mister, it’s Halloween and kids are on the streets for trick-and-treating. Look, he has a costume and he has been dressing for almost an hour. And you say you don’t have a shitty chocolate bar for him?”

“I don’t want a shitty bar,” Jamie whispered in fear. “Uncle Dean, let’s leave.”

“No, I... You are right, definitely, but… I don’t have food in the house, I just came in a while ago… I’m sorry.”

The man tried to excuse himself, but he didn’t move away to hide. He took a step back and stopped directly under the ceiling lamp. Dean liked his face with a sharp shadow under the straight nose, with strong jaw edge and cheekbones. He definitely liked it.

“You must be having something. A candy, a chewing gum? You aren’t that empty, are you?”

The man looked in Dean’s eyes and shrugged helplessly. 

“Okay, then you’ll go with us.”

Dean couldn’t explain what came over him.

The man looked at him smileless. “Why?”

“You’ll go with us. Wait, Jamie,” Dean waved off his nephew yanking him by the lapel of his jacket. “Get some air.”

“But why?”

“Because it’s Halloween and you didn’t find a fucking candy for a kid,” Dean replied. “Don’t listen, Jamie, and don’t tell your mom I said “fucking”.”

Jamie giggled. The man looked at him and smiled slightly.

“You know, it’s possibly the best proposal I got recently. Give me a minute, I’ll take my coat.” 

Shortly later the candyless man, dressed in unbuttoned light brown trenchcoat, stood beside Dean and Jamie in front of his dark house.

“My name is Castiel,” he said.

“I’m Dean.” Dean shook his hand. “And here is Jamie, my nephew.”

“Hello, Jamie,” Castiel said politely. “Where will we go?”

“To the next street,” Jamie replied. “We haven’t been there.”

“Then show the way,” Dean said. “We’ll follow you.”

*

An hour later Jamie could barely walk, as the bag on his belt became really heavy.

“It’s time to go home, buddy,” Dean told him.

“But uncle Dean…” Jamie began to nag.

“Jamie, it’s really late,” Castiel surprisingly supported Dean. “You have to go to bed.”

He’s been following Dean silently, listening to his chatter about stupid pumpkins, dumb cats with tails in the air and other stuff. Sometimes he nodded and smiled. Dean ordered himself to shut up, but his mouth didn’t obey his brain, and so he continued his rapid-fire talk. Castiel’s voice made shivers run up his spine.  
They walked to Sam and Jess’s house. Jamie ran happily to his mother showing his special treats. Jess was still dressed in her business outfit and high heels, but she was at home. Sam’s car wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the driveway.

“I’ll go for a drink, Jess,” Dean said to her without coming in.

“Don’t stay too late,” she replied. “We have to get up early tomorrow.”

“No problemo.”

Dean saluted Jamie jokingly.

“Thank you, Dean,” Jess said to his back.

When he turned around, Jess had already closed the door.

“A nice kid,” Castiel said.

“The best. Well, may I invite you to a beer?”

Castiel glanced at his left wrist as if he wanted to look at his watch, but there wasn’t any. He rubbed his hand awkwardly.

“If that doesn’t take too long. I have to attend somewhere else tonight.”

“In and out in no time,” Dean waved a hand. 

*

He kissed Castiel himself after they left a bar at about eleven. Dean pushed him to the aisle full of boxes, garbage cans and other stuff, pressed him to the wall and bit his pale pink lips he wanted to taste all this evening. They were lightly bitter from beer, and salty from peanuts, and sweet as honey — Castiel’s own taste. 

“Maybe you could give up your meeting?” Dean said still clenching the lapels of Castiel’s trenchcoat. “Let find a motel…”

“I’d like that.” Castiel tilted his head slightly aside like a bird. “But I really can’t.”

“Where do you have to go so late?” Dean exclaimed. “Everyone is asleep already.”

“To the hospital,” Castiel said suddenly. “Do you want to go with me?”

Dean felt anxious.

“What’s there?”

“I have to visit somebody,” Castiel said. “Now.”

Dean gave it a short thought and nodded.

“All right, come on, it’s better than jerking alone.”

Castiel’s gaze went down, and Dean smuggled shamelessly and allusively to his heaps. Castiel’s ears turned pink, and he gave Dean a quick kiss.

“Let’s go, we’ll be late,” Castiel said, and they went out in the bright of a street, holding close enough to each other to show they were together, but not too close to annoy other people.

An elevator took them up to the seventh floor. They walked through an empty hallway, nobody noticing them, and nobody paying attention as if they weren’t there at all. It was ten to midnight when Castiel pushed the door of a room. 

Dean came in and looked around. It was an intensive care unit, in the middle there was a high medical bed with someone tangled in tubes. Beside the bed there was a monitor with curves running on the screen. Dean felt a bit of fear, but still came closer. Castiel stood next to him. Dean looked down. Dressed in a hospital gown and covered with a sheet until his waist, there was Castiel laying on the bed.

His eyes were closed, lips slightly apart. A transparent tube dove in his right nostril, another tube, thick and riffled, drove in the slit on his throat. Dean noticed Castiel’s thorax fell and rose in sync with the movements of a pump in a glass cylinder beside the bed.

“Your brother?” Dean asked, suddenly sober.

Castiel kept silence for a short moment.

“It’s me,” he said finally.

*

 

“So, in the presence of Mr. Novak’s attorney, Mr. Samuel Winchester, we are now starting the procedure of disconnecting life support devices. Nurse, please.”

The middle-aged doctor sighed.

Dean stood near the wall. He didn’t expect Sam to walk in. He paid no attention to Dean, just walked to the bed and stopped beside it.

“According to Mr. Novak’s last will, in case of his inability to maintain his life function and if he doesn’t get better in six months, the life support systems should be turned off. Do you confirm Mr. Novak’s brain activity has ceased, and there’s no hope for recovery?” Sam spoke dryly and formally.

“I do,” the doctor nodded.

“Six months end today, on the 31th of October.”

In fear, Dean looked at the clock over the door right when the black arrows met on twelve. The nurse leaned down and pressed a button. 

The noise of the pump stopped first. The monitor beeped evenly. Then beeps became less frequent. The body on the bed twitched. Dean couldn’t resist any more.

“No, Castiel, fuck, damn you, Cas, hold on!” He ran to the bed and began pounding on the chest of the man. “Cas, you son of the bitch, you owe me! You promised we’d go to a motel! Breathe!” 

*

Castiel felt a pound on his chest, then another. A shrill voice penetrated his ears not allowing to dig into pleasant white light. What’s the matter? Doesn’t he deserve a peaceful death? Castiel jerked his head and took a deep breath. Himself. And then again and again. And began to breath. Then he opened his teary eyes.

He was on the floor in his hospital room, next to the window, and his new friend, Dean, sat by his side. Castiel was breathing like he had run a hundred yards, but he felt incredibly free. He forced himself to slow his breathing and soon realized, that he was able to at least sit up. 

People hurried and scurried about the room. Somebody announced loudly, “Time of death is November the 1st, 2012, 00.04.”

Dean got up and gave Castiel his hand. When he took it, he hitched him up. They watched together as the nurse covered the face of the man on the bed with a sheet. Sam took last notes, shook the doctor’s hand, gave a nod to the nurse and left. The doctor followed him. The nurse turned off all the machines, disconnected the hose, rolled it up and wheeled the monitor to the hallway. 

Using the moment, Castiel went to the bed and lifted the sheet. He looked at the skinny pale face and a white plastic tube protruding of his throat. 

“It will leave a scar,” he said with regret. 

Dean came closer and examined his neck carefully. “Nope, it’s nothing,” he said. “Look in the mirror.”

Castiel waved his hand indifferently. “No big deal. What now?”

Dean shrugged.

“I dunno. I don’t quite get what happened here.”

“Well, obviously I died,” Castiel said.

“Then I did too.” Dean patted his sides. “Why am I still here?”

They left the room and walked along the hallway. Where the elevator should had been, now was a bright stream of white light with swirling gold flakes of dust . 

“It’s for us,” Castiel said.

“Are you sure?”

“It was like that in “The Ghost”.”

“Well…” Dean said and then asked timidly, “Can you hold my hand?”

Silently Castiel intertwined his fingers with Dean’s. 

“Let us go?”

They stepped forward together at the same time.

***  
Sam poured himself a whiskey and was about to drink it, when the telephone rang. He looked around to the stairs, then ran into the kitchen and picked up. 

“Mr. Winchester?”

The speaker sounded used to obedience. Sam knew such people very well. 

“Yes.”

“Mr. Winchester, I have bad news for you. It seems we have found your brother’s car.”

“Where?”

Sam was getting angry. Dean parked Impala well, oh yes. He was in trouble again, no doubt. 

“Near Palo Alto. Your brother lost control over the car obviously. The road was empty, it came into the ditch, to the bush, and nobody saw that. It’s not visible from the road, it’s was just a luck that somebody stopped close to the place.”

Sam closed his eyes. Dean, Dean, Dean. Always the same shit.

“I’ll call my brother, he told me nothing,” Sam replied, but the policeman interrupted him.

“I guess, it isn’t possible, Mr. Winchester. There was a body in the car. Your brother died yesterday.”

Sam felt he could not breath. 

***

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the priest was reading.

The weather in Kansas was as bad as in California. Which was not surprising. Sam shivered in his black coat. The veiled black hat made Jess look like a movie star. Jamie held his laser sword in the hands.

Close to their parents’ graves there was an empty dark hole. The polished surface of the simple coffin was covered with fine drops of November rain. No one else but Sam, Jess, Jamie and the priest were present at the Stull Cemetery. Only a worker in an old sweater and a green jumpsuit was waiting in a small bulldozer for the ceremony to end, but he did not count.

Dean shifted on something that looked like a cloud, but was much firmer, and settled comfortably. Castiel sat beside him in a perfect half-lotus position, back straight and hands on the knees covered with black slacks. 

“Just look at it,” Dean said angrily. “No good music, no booze. No girls pole dancing.”

“Do you need girls on the poles?” Castiel gazed at him in surprise. “I thought, you were gay.”

“I’m a pan-sexual,” Dean said significantly. “I don’t care what somebody’s got between the legs, it’s only the heart that matters.”

Castiel nodded thoughtfully, as if tasting this new idea. 

“And how would you like?”

“Well…” Dean laid down, his knees bent and arms outstretched. “First, a good rock music. Led Zeppelin, for example, or Metallica. It would be cool with a live band, but I could live with a ghettoblaster. And a table with booze and food. Fresh burgers. And I’d have my baby here.”

“Baby?” Castiel raised his eyebrows.

“My car. She is a beauty.”

“But you died in it,” Castiel said.

“So what?” Disturbed, Dean sat up and almost fell from the cloud, but caught his balance. “It’s not her fault. Oh, Sam won’t care for her … We have to fly to him and tell him to fix her and let her wait in the garage for Jamie.” 

Castiel smiled. “We’ll do that. But they will be scared.”

Dean waved his hand carelessly. “No matter. They’ll get used to us.”

The service at the Stull Cemetery was over. Jamie put his sword on the coffin and walked to the car independently without looking back. Sam and Jess followed him.

“We have to look over Jamie,” Castiel said worriedly.

“Yeah,” Dean nodded. “It’s okay, he’s a tough boy, a real Winchester. By the way, when is your ashes to be scattered?”

“Next week,” Castiel stood up and dusted his pants off. “I’m hungry.”

“Me too. How about to grab some burgers and go check the lake behind the house? I’d like to know if there is a wooden platform like the ones they made in my childhood.”

“There is,” Castiel nodded confidently. “Must be.”

Dean grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him closer, and Castiel put his arm around Dean’s waist, and then they walked home into their personal paradise.


End file.
